Nick Baumann

Ok, this post will contain massive Star Wars: The Force Awakens spoilers. You’ve been warned. 

Turn back now. 

Ok here goes. 

There are many theories about the as yet unrevealed identity of Rey, the protagonist of The Force Awakens. The most popular one I think, holds that she is Luke’s daughter. After all, she has the ah, Skywalker way with the Force, and the parallels between her and Luke’s modest upbringings are hard to ignore. But I think this is a little too obvious for Abrams, who deliberately pulled a bait and switch implying that Finn was the Jedi hero of the film, when it was really Rey. 

There are other theories, that she’s Han and Leia’s daughter and Kylo’s sister or possibly twin (I find it hard to believe that two parents finding their daughter after two decades would not see fit to mention it to each other, and both of them clearly know who Rey really is) or that she’s Obi Wan’s granddaughter (not a bad theory, since we hear Obi Wan’s voice during the flashback, but it would require Obi Wan to have broken his vows and abandoned his post watching over Luke). 

So here is my theory: Rey is a clone of Anakin Skywalker. 

Think about it: The only reference to the prequels in the entire movie is Ren mentioning the possibility of replacing storm troopers with clones. Rey is great with machines, she’s a fantastic pilot, and she is effortless with the force. Not even Luke was that much of a natural–only ::shudder:: Anakin. This would explain the violence of Rey’s flashback–she was looking at what was essentially a past life. (Obi Wan, on the other hand, had no use for machines, wasn’t a great pilot, and was strong with the Force but not effortlessly). 

This theory also explains why she is hidden away. It would be extremely hard for a parent to part with a child (if she were Luke’s daughter) but if she were a clone of Anakin, Luke would be more frightened of the possibility of training her, especially given what happened to Kylo Ren. 

So who cloned Vader? My theory is that Palpatine cloned Vader in case he needed a spare, and that the clone process began as soon as Vader died. Luke and the rebellion find her, and horrified, Luke hides her away, unwittingly replicating his father’s upbringing as a slave on a desert planet (which he had no way of knowing about, not knowing his father well and having all information about him suppressed by those who knew both Luke and Anakin). 

The other thing about this theory is that it is perfect torture for Kylo Ren: His biggest fear is that he will never be as powerful as darth vader. And Rey IS Darth Vader. Couldn’t be more perfect. 

My affection for Hillary Clinton is hard to explain. It wins no fights and earns you no friends to admit it: Actual warmth, even protectiveness, toward this impossible, frustrating, contradictory, polarizing, disappointing woman. My finding Hillary intensely “likable” is weird, and I admit it. It doesn’t signify universal approval of her decisions. I can and do disagree with Hillary Clinton, regularly and strongly. But some part of me also hopes that Hillary Clinton is having a nice day. 

I’ve come to believe that, in some ways, saying nice things about Hillary Clinton is a subversive act. I spent much of this year working on a long project on how women are demonized in the media. Hillary Clinton was a fairly large part of that story – she had to be; if you want to talk “women that people hate,” she’s kind of unavoidable – and I spent a while sorting through Clintoniana, dating back to the early ‘90s, to find nasty things people had said about her, or common narratives about her personality. It wasn’t pretty – the worst stuff for Hillary was way worse than I’d expected, and there was way more of it than I expected to find – but it was also illuminating, in some key ways. I got a better sense of the pressures that she has to live with, and how they’ve informed her decisions.

I also realized that, unless you really take a look at those pressures, the narrative around Hillary Clinton’s “likability” is doomed to be inaccurate, in some way. She might even be very easy to dislike, if you weren’t looking at those narratives, or if you underestimated their severity. But, in my experience, trying to parse Hillary Clinton without also parsing Hillary-Hate is like trying to drink water without touching the glass. As long as you refuse to deal with the container, the actual substance tends to stay permanently out of reach. 

I’m trans, you all know that, right? I’m also very much pre-transition, and in the closet about it. The only reason this blog exists in the first place is to give me a safe place to talk about that, and really, I don’t do enough of that. Anyway, today I’d like to take a moment to discuss the whole concept of “coming out” to people. It’s an incredibly hard thing to do, and in an alarming number of cases, it’s also incredibly dangerous.

I’ve spent the past year losing 80 lbs and getting in shape. A lot of people have been asking me how I did it; specifics like what diet I was on, how many times a week I worked out, etc etc. So I thought I’d just answer everyone’s questions by giving you guys step by step instructions on how you can achieve everything I have… IN JUST 4 EASY STEPS! Ready? Here we go!!!

1.) NO BEER This is a big one, and one that you’ve probably heard before. Every time you drink a beer, it’s like eating seven slices of bread. That’s a lot of bread!

2.) PORTION CONTROL This is especially true when you go out to eat at restaurants. A good trick to do is when your meal comes, cut it in half and right away ask for a takeout container, so that you can save the rest for later - and even better, if you start your meal out right by ordering lean meats and veggies, you’ll slim down in no time!

3.) HAVE YOUR HEART BROKEN And not just broken; shattered. Into itsy bitsy tiny little pieces, by a girl who never loved you and never will. Join the gym at your work. Start going to the gym regularly, and even though you don’t know that much about exercise and you’re way too weak to do pretty much anything but lift 5 lb weights and use the elliptical machines with the old people, do it until your sweat makes a puddle on the floor. Then go home and go to bed early and the next day do it again. And then again. And then again.

Listen to stories of your ex-girlfriend fucking around with gross and terrible people, stories from your friends who think they are doing you a favor. Go to the gym and make more puddles of sweat. Buy books. Learn about different muscle groups and how they work together. Start eating healthy. Learn about nutrition. Plan out your week of meals. Try to forget her.

Translation:

Hello Ann,

I have never read anything you’ve written but you name appeared on a list of people who have written things on the internet in the past, so I can only assume you are a writer. I would love to exploit that fact on Listicle, a startup that convinced some venture capitalists to give us money based on our promise to monetize highly shareable content, or listicles, as we like to call them.

At Listicle, we have a “contributing writer program” meant to expand our audience at the expense of talented bloggers and writers like you. We believe in exploiting the fact that new writers have a difficult time getting media companies to pay them for their work (we’re not a media company! we’re a technology company), and don’t see the point in hiring editors, either, because we don’t actually care about quality. Being accepted to our program means that a writer’s content has the opportunity to improve our site metrics instantly. We understand how important it is to our business model to expand our online presence by publishing an obscene number of posts to compete with numerous outlets that waste money on editors, like Jezebel. We hope that Listicle can become like one of those outlets, only more profitable because we’ll never pay anyone!

If you’d like to proceed, please go ahead “request to fuck yourself over” on Listicle and email me back. You can also find more details about this depressingly common non-opportunity at: https://www.listicle.co/l/12248. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to write a Tumblr post about them.